Paris part 1

I took a flexi-Friday, which meant a beer at lunchtime, and not going back to work. I wandered round town for a short while, then caught a bus to the international airport, where I was massively early, and, thanks to EasyJet (don't get me started), I had to wait for an hour or so before I could get my boarding pass and get to the next bar. I had the option of checking in on-line, and going straight through security. Wohoo: I like this. I printed my boarding pass to Paris, and then the one to Belfast. They looked different. I studied them. The one to Paris didn't have my name or the flight on it, nor the bar code. Hmmm. I went to the page again, and compared it to the Paris-Belfast pass. It still looked different: bar codes were in different places. I hit F5 (refresh). The entire page went away. Errrr... what? The back button didn't work. I had broken it. Well, apparently not entirely. You only get to print your boarding pass twice. (It says so in the small print.) I got to print a screwed one once. Thus you find me at the airport being very patient, reading Hunter S. Thompson (he is a fantastic travel companion).

At 3:15pm I join the queue for boarding passes, and enter the sacred world of two bars. I decide to be sensible though, and go through security - there have to be more bars on the other side - and the queue looks nasty. It is - it goes on for ever, and they want me to take my shoes and belt off (can't they tell I've been to the gym since I bought these jeans, and this has the potential to be embarrassing?). I shuffle through clutching my waistband with both hands. Safely on the other side I do a quick browse for tax free specials. I am kidding myself. The EU has many things going for it, but cheap alcohol is not one of them. At this point I come across a money machine dispensing euros. (Quick digression: I was listing things I had to do earlier in the week to Lara, and one of them was go to a bank and pick up some francs. She laughed and laughed at me (anyone seeing a pattern here?), and reminded me that France was using the euro these days. Sure I knew that, I was working in Dublin at the time...) Now is a good time to pick up some euros, I thought to myself. I tried using my cashflow card (I still don't know its proper U.K. name), but it wasn't accepted. No worries, I'll use my credit card. Eeep, the longer you have them the more blasé you become; like violence on tv (Family Guy anyone?). Unfortunately it had been such a long time since I'd used it I couldn't remember the pin... (It was set by the bank, not me.) Oh dear. The weekend stretched out in front of me - long, euroless, sober, cheeseless, long, airportfull... I nearly broke out in a cold sweat. I imagined the conversation I would have with the bank (I've had it before). It was dreadful. I texted Kipper, and didn't hear back. She's distancing herself, I thought. Perhaps it's just this machine, I thought. Those in France will be more forgiving. They'll take my cashflow card. What if they didn't? Fortunately, however, common sense prevailed, and I realised I could call Lara, who would look up the pin for me, which I keep in the sensible "important papers" pile. I thought it had 8s and 2s in it; well, I was close. (Ish.)

After this wee bout of stress, I locate the alcohol (no anosmia here) and a seat at my gate. This is important, because the flight is delayed. And delayed. And further delayed. And then a little bit more. Finally we are called, and make it onto the plane. My seat is the second row from the front next to an English couple who are also off to Paris for the weekend. We're up in the air for 20 minutes (I know this, because she and I both check our watches when we lift off: 7:55pm, instead of 5:15pm), when the captain announces "Cabin crew prepare the cabin for landing". Really, they have to be joking. Nope, turns out they're not. We land at Luton (apparently somewhere in London), because... we'll, no-one seems sure exactly why. They have mixed up stories about technical problems (what delayed us at Belfast, apparently), and ill cabin staff (there is an ambulance, which went to the wrong plane). People on the window side report that the staff member can walk, so she's probably not dying. We have to get off the plane, and onto a bus, where we are transported, like animals to the slaughter (Roald Dahl is uppermost in my mind at the moment) to a holding pen. An article later we are bussed back to another plane, where we're told that due to the "inconvenience" we will be given a free hot or cold (non-alcoholic) drink, though because of the short flight everybody may not receive theirs, and they apologise for this in advance. Well, thanks EasyJet; and I was a lucky one - being in the front row this time.

So we eventually arrived at Charles de Gaulle at around 11:15pm, in time to catch a train (after I follow, very carefully, the signs for the "RER", and pass very scary army people carrying real guns (hey, I'm from N.Z. - we do things like name our kids Superman when we can't have 4REAL, and we don't have soldiers in Belfast) to the Gare du Nord where I failed to meet Kipper for a good 15 minutes, and spent easily £3 texting her (texts are 49p each when you're roaming on vodafone). It was complete fluke that I found her, having given up looking for the tourist information in disgust, and actually left the building (call me Elvis). I found another entrance though, and wandered back in, just as she was whistling our school song (one of the choruses from Verdi's Aïda); she's still sure it "called" me. Could have been, though if she'd been shouting "Free beer", I'd be more convinced... This is now around a quarter past midnight, and we have 15 minutes until the last train to her flat. Just time to grab a quick kebab, and sprint back to the her station. Excellent.

I manage to open a bottle of red which had until now evaded her clutches, and we stay up talking until 4am. I like Paris a lot already.